Dale McGowan overheard his children Delaney and Connor having this conversation and it worried him:
From the next room, I heard Delaney (7) sharing a conversation she had with a friend at school. “I told her I didn’t really believe in God, but I was still thinking about it. She said she didn’t know anybody else who…”
“Lane…” Connor said, then sighed with exaggerated patience.
She stopped. “What?”
“Lane, you really shouldn’t talk about religion at school.”
“Why not? It’s interesting.”
“You shouldn’t talk about it because you gain nothing and it gets all your friends to hate you.”
Unquote.
Pause.
“Nuh uhh.”
“Yes. It does, Lane.”
It took every bit of my strength to stay in my chair.
I had at least three reasons to be concerned about this…
Dale talked to his children about this to get more information and it turns out there is a bit more to this story.
The moral is clear, though: Children should be open to discussing their religious beliefs. The more they do that, the more comfortable they become about the subject.
If more children did this, maybe we’d see a future in which criticism of religion isn’t such a problem. Religion needs to become like politics in this way — a topic we don’t shy away from debating and discussing with friends, family, and even colleagues. The less taboo around the subject, the better.
(via The Meming of Life)